Trump’s Golden Dome: The United States is now working on a huge and complex defence shield called the Golden Dome, and it will be unlike anything the country has built before. It will have four layers one in space and three on the ground and will cover the entire US, including Alaska and Hawaii. According to details shown in a recent government presentation, there will be 11 short-range batteries spread across the country.
The idea came from Israel’s Iron Dome system, but Golden Dome will be far bigger because it has to protect a much larger area and deal with different kinds of threats. President Donald Trump has set 2028 as the deadline for the system to be ready. The cost is massive about $175 billion but even now, the number of launchers, interceptors, radars, and missile sites is not final.
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One US official explained that there is a lot of money already, but no clear final figure for what the system will really cost. Congress has already given $25 billion through a tax-and-spend bill passed in July, and Trump’s 2026 budget plan has set aside another $45.3 billion for the project, reported Reuters.
How the System Will Work?
The Golden Dome will have a space layer that will track and warn about missile launches, plus handle missile defence. On the ground, three different layers will have interceptors, radar systems, and maybe even lasers. The presentation also showed something unexpected a new large missile field that might be placed somewhere in the Midwest. This site will be for the Next Generation Interceptors, made by Lockheed Martin, which will work along with the Terminal High Altitude Area Defence and Aegis systems, also from Lockheed.
These new interceptors will be part of the improved Ground-Based Midcourse Defence network, which is currently the main defence system protecting the US from intercontinental missiles fired by rogue nations. Right now, the US has GMD launch sites in southern California and Alaska. The plan will add a third site in the Midwest to cover more threats.
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Trump’s Golden Dome: US Defense Project
The contractors involved in Golden Dome include Lockheed, Northrop Grumman, RTX, and Boeing, but SpaceX which had earlier shown interest with partners like Palantir and Anduril was not mentioned in the slides. The Pentagon is still collecting information from industry, universities, national labs, and other agencies, but says it is too early to share many details.
One of the main aims is to destroy missiles in their “boost phase”, which is the slower and more predictable part of their climb after launch. The US has built interceptors and re-entry vehicles before, but never one that can survive re-entry heat and still hit an enemy missile. The final defence layer will include systems like the Patriot missile defence system and a new launcher that can fire different interceptors at all types of threats. These launchers will be easy to move and set up, so the system won’t depend too much on fixed locations.
The project’s leader, Space Force General Michael Guetlein, was confirmed in July to head the Golden Dome. He has only 30 days from his confirmation to gather his team. After that, he gets 60 more days to give the first system design and then 120 days to show the full plan with all the satellite and ground station details. The slides presented to 3,000 defence contractors in Huntsville, Alabama, made it clear that the job will be big, fast, and ambitious or as the presentation itself put it, “Go Fast, Think Big!”
